It really is something to marvel at how managers can repeatedly forget the importance of a human touch when it comes to dealing with clients. Hokey business theory and overconfidence are no match for good relationships and experience at your side. Yet, time and time again, new managers come marching on the scene, insecure about their place in their new role—maybe due to their lack of experience in the industry—overcompensating for that by making broad, sweeping changes, ignoring the pleas very…

Sometimes, you have to fight fire with fire—there's no other way of dealing with the issue. Specifically, when dealing with hackers, the only way to counter them is to apply the same techniques they're using against you and go on the offensive. Or, at least, that's what cool stories like this would lend you to believe, I've never been in a cyber war with a hacker, so don't take my word for it. It sounds cool, at least, and who doesn't love the trope-y ideal of going toe-to-toe with a hacker —ty…

The proverb “A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush” postulates that you're better off with what you have or are able to get now rather than what you might be able to get in the future. Reson being that While working for an emergency telecommunications company, this worker fell into the all-too-common trap of taking on additional work with the promise that it would eventually lead to more pay. Spoiler alert: It didn't. With the proverbial carrot dangling just in front of them indefin…

We all have people in our lives who make us wonder how they managed to get this far without having a single drop of technological knowledge or orientation. It is truly amazing (and slightly infuriating) that certain people can completely avoid adapting to necessary technological advancements, and still get so far in life. More often than not, those people end up becoming our bosses, which then leads us to be assigned the fantastic task of helping them navigate through the easiest tech stuff. Af…

Let's be real; everything is a subscription these days, whether or not they should be or even really can be. Before long, we'll need to keep up with the weekly subscription on our toaster for the privilege of cooking two pieces of toast at once. While that might sound outrageous, keep in mind printers have already normalized that type of thing for years—even new cars have started coming with basic features locked behind subscription-based grifting models. While this is bad, it's even worse when…

Sometimes you can't just tell people things—they won't listen. It takes actually experiencing the negative result that you were warning them about for them to admit they were wrong. Predictably, this happens all the time with unreasonable egotistical bosses who are eager to prove themselves… This developer, working for a financial services company, developed various tools and scripts to compensate for the company's other shortcomings, sometimes inadequate customer solutions. This saw them worki…

via BoliviaInteligente on Unsplash In the span of just a few years, we've gone from barely understanding what AI does to seeing it used everywhere. Your inbox is likely chock-full of companies bragging about their latest AI updates. On photo editing sites, AI generation is touted on the home page. X, formerly known as Twitter, has an AI named "Grok," while Google has the cutesy "Gemini." They want you to talk to these artificial beings, ask them questions, and even let them be your personal ass…

This employee worked in the contracts department of a major software company, which they refer to as “MidSoft Inc” Continual foolish decisions that thought of nothing but the bottom line and cost-cutting measures, driven by the ravenous interests of private equity investors, reduced the company's senior development team from 12 to one soldier, “Sam.” While the ledger might have looked better for a time, the immeasurable loss of institutional knowledge and literal lifetimes of experience would g…

Like a boss

It's common knowledge that you'll often never be appreciated for your job when things are going well—or even great. Your boss and employer assume your high performance is just a given and merit to their management rather than a credit to your own talent and efforts. But, as soon as something goes wrong, they won't blame themselves, even though that will make the most sense based on their logic. No, they'll suddenly come around asking questions, trying to figure out what went wrong, and looking…

The last 50 years have brought an unprecedented amount of technology and reform to the way we do business. Those writing Science Fiction around that time might have predicted that we'd either be living in a utopia where we no longer needed to work to live or we'd be living in a dystopian world where few oligarchs, like the fictional Eldon Tyrell, hoarded wealth from the masses like dragons sitting on a pile of gold, while many struggled just to survive in a world of decaying infrastructure amid…

You've probably heard that old adage about the new hire who goes in for their first day of training ready to do everything by the book but is instead surprised and maybe even disappointed when they're instead taught all of the shortcuts that the experienced grizzled employee has developed over the years, cutting out the parts of the process that are superfluous and unnecessary. The problem is that by learning and only using the shortcuts in the first instance, they're never going to understand…

When it's your job to ensure important information is protected, and someone insists that you delete it, even if it's the client themself, you'd be right to pause for a moment and reassess the situation if something doesn't sound quite right. Clients tend to woefully overestimate their abilities in the matter they're contracting you to handle, so they may be asking you to do something they don't fully understand the implications of. This tech support specialist worked for a small organization,…

Social media doesn't come easily to every person. Some people take forever to learn how to upload Instagram pictures or navigate X (formerly known as Twitter). And some people haven't even left Facebook ! Even in current year, when many of us have moved on from Facebook to more current social media sites, there's still a big population who are enjoying the site. Whenever I scroll through good ole Facebook , I see more and more people using avatars in their statuses (see #1 for an example). They…

Every person who has ever worked in IT or Tech Support knows that having sharp 'people skills' is just as important as understanding computers and technology. Every day, those employees have to deal with people having technological issues, so they need to know not only how to handle the problem, but also how to handle the people with that problem. That can get incredibly tricky, as people are not at their best when they are having issues, and many simply don't want to learn when their issues ha…

Earlier in my career, working for a retail organization that also had a workshop providing maintenance and break-fix work, I received some sage advice from a wizened and weary mechanic who had been dealing with unruly customers for far too long. “Bend over backward to solve their problem today, and they become your permanent problem.” See, there are plenty of people in this world just looking for the attention of someone, and if you make it your problem to help them, they'll identify you as som…